Bu Xiangzhi wins Blindfold Chess World Cup in Bilbao

10/21/2007 – He led the event from start to finish, and until the last round had not lost a single game (performing, incidentally, at almost 3000 Elo). But even the last-round loss to Judit Polgar could not stop the remarkable Chinese GM from taking first. Meanwhile Sergey Karjakin overtook his great rival Magnus Carlsen to win Silver. Final report.

Bilbao Blindfold Chess World Cup

The Bilbao Blindfold Chess World Cup took place from October 16th to 20th,
2007, in the Hotel Sheraton Bilbao. The participating players are listed in
the graphic below (provided by the official web site):

The Blind Chess World Cup was played in semi-rapid match mode, as a double
round robin, with each pairing playing a mini-match of two games each day of
the tournament. Time controls were 25 minutes per player for the entire game
plus 10 seconds increment per move.

All results from rounds 9 and 10 (final)

Round 9: Saturday, October 20th,
18:30h

Bu Xiangzhi

1-0

Judit Polgar

Sergey Karjakin

1-0

Pentala Harikrishna

Magnus Carlsen

1-0

Veselin Topalov

Round 10: Saturday, October 20th, 19:30h

Judit Polgar

1-0

Bu Xiangzhi

Pentala Harikrishna

0-1

Sergey Karjakin

Veselin Topalov

½-½

Magnus Carlsen

Round nine was remarkable, with all games won by White. The Chinese former
child prodigy Bu Xiangzhi put an end to all our theoretical scenarios by winning
his first Saturday night game against Judit Polgar, thus reaching a point score
that nobody could come near. At that stage the astounding Bu had scored 7.5
points from nine games, with a rating performance of 2990 (i.e. he achieved
a result against a field of 2710 average GMs that you would expect from a player
rated 2990). Meanwhile Magnus Carlsen, the youngest player in the tournament,
defeated former FIDE world champion Veselin Topalov quite convincingly, and
seemed well on the way to occupying second place. Pentala Harikrishna continued
his grim fight for last place with a loss to Ukrainian GM Sergey Karjakin.

In the final round Judit Polgar, the strongest female player in history, by
a long margin, fought hard to take back a point from Bu. The Chinese player
suffered his first and only loss in this event. Sergey Karjakin won his second
game against the luckless Harikrishna, and since Magnus Carlsen drew against
Topalov he was overtaken by Karjakin according to the Bilbao scoring rules (see
below).

Picture Gallery

The community of Bilbao at the end of the 16th Century

Bilbao today, with la ría del Nervión – the Nervión
river, which flows through the city

The Plaza Moya with a grand fountain in front of the government building

The most famous landmark of Bilbao: the wild and beautiful Guggenheim Museum
of Modern Art

A giant puppy made of plants and flowers in front of the Guggenheim

The winner of the World Blindfold Cup: Bu Xiangzhi

How does he do it? Judit Polgar and Magnus Carlsen watch Bu at play

Sergey Karjakin, who overtook Magnus Carlsen (right) in the last round

Magnus Carlsen at work during a blindfold game

Out of luck: former FIDE champion Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria)

All photos by Nadja Woisin. Many more pictures, including
city scenes
from Bilbao, are available on our Spanish web site here,
here
and here.

Final results

Using the traditional point system, the final cross table would look like this:

In Bilbao wins counted for three points and draws for one. So the scores according
to this system are calculated as follows:

Player

Wins

Draw

Loss

Points

1. Xiangzhi Bu

6

3

1

21

2. Sergey Karjakin

5

2

3

17

3. Magnus Carlsen

4

4

2

16

4. Judit Polgar

3

3

4

12

5. Veselin Topalov

2

3

5

9

6. Pentala Harikrishna

1

3

6

6

There is one clear difference between both tables. Before the final two rounds
Magnus Carlsen had been in second place, half a point ahead of Sergey Karjakin
on the traditional table and one point ahead in the Bilbao system. In the last
two rounds Carlsen won one game and drew the second, while Karjakin won both
games. On the traditional table Krajakin caught up with Carlsen, though he had
a slightly worse tiebreak score. On the Bilbao table he overtook Carlsen –
that is the point of wins counting more than double that of draws – and
landed clear second.

So what effect did the Bilbao system have on the draw statistics. After all
this is the reason for introducing the three-points-for-a-win system. Here are
the statistics:

As you can cee the drawing percentage is extremely low, just 30%, which would
seem to convincingly justify the scoring system. On the other hand in blindfold
chess errors occur very frequently and lead to fewer draws than would occur
if the players could see the board. So the jury must remain out on the advantages
of the scoring system. It would be interesting to stage a few high-profile tournaments
with high prize funds – no appearence fees – to see if players will
change their styles, avoid draws and go for the money.

See also

10/26/2007 – Until a few years ago encounters between chess teams from different cities
were fairly expensive – prohibitively so if they were many thousands
of kilometers apart. Today that has changed. The organisers of the Bilbao
Blindfold World Cup, using Playchess.com, were able to stage an eight-board match between the
Basque city and the South African Durban. How things have changed!Discuss

10/20/2007 – Four more rounds have been completed in Bilbao, with Chinese grandmaster Bu Xianghzi scoring heavily (3.5/4) to take a commanding lead. Only Magnus Carlsen, who is in second place, can catch Bu – who would have to lose both his final games to allow this. In third place behind these two former child prodigies is the ultimate child prodigy Sergey Karjakin. Report and games.Discuss

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